


see if you can spot him

by herowndeliverance (atheilen)



Series: under their own vine and fig tree [1]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (child neglect really), Alexander Hamilton is George Washington's Biological Son, Canon Era, First Meetings, Gen, I Care Even Less About the Timeline than the Musical Does, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Slavery, Washingdad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 19:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11767155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheilen/pseuds/herowndeliverance
Summary: In which a stranger comes to St. Croix, and Alexander Hamilton offers to aid him in his quest.He gets more than he bargained for.





	see if you can spot him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/gifts), [vi_a_tsibele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vi_a_tsibele/gifts).



> So, um, last February, scioscribe asked me to write the first meeting between Alexander and George in the Fig tree universe. It has sat in my WIP folder gathering dust for over a year. Then recently, Tumblr user @klaproos prompted the same thing in my inbox. This got way too long to answer as an ask, so here we are. I hope you both enjoy the gift!
> 
> Thank you to the-everqueen for the extremely fast beta!
> 
> A few notes:
> 
> My Washingdad AUs take the 1757 birthdate for Alexander, so he is 11 here. I have compressed the timeline so that events take place in a matter of months, not years. Thus, Peter Lytton has committed suicide and Alexander has been disinherited, and has just started staying with the Stevens family, even though irl all of these things would not happen for some time.
> 
> Warnings are in tags. The Mature rating is for discussion of the aforementioned suicide, so please read with care!

Mrs. Stevens was having a bad day. Alexander knew the signs, of course. Cousin Peter had had bad days all the time. Days where he seemed to stare at nothing, or shout at everything. Days where he wouldn’t get out of bed and would take neither food nor drink. Jamie, good Scotsman that he was, always said Cousin Peter’s bad days showed his poor moral fiber, but Alexander knew better. Peter had been a good sort at heart, even if he couldn’t always show it. Even if he’d forgotten to update the paperwork for his will. It was just that Jamie had never learned the trick of it, of reading Peter’s moods the way one would look to the clouds to read whether there was a storm coming or not. And unlike Alexander, he resented Peter’s dark moods, thought something should be done about them, or maybe just that something could be done about them.

Even before the end, Alexander had known better. His cousin’s bad days really were like storms, and they couldn’t be planned for, only endured. And in the end the storm took him, the way storms sometimes took even the most able sailors. Nothing you could do about it either way. It was in God’s hands.

So Alexander knew what to do when Mrs. Stevens had a bad day. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. It was best that Alexander keep himself far away, really, when she was like this. He was the sort who made bad days worse. Besides, there was a sharpness to Mrs. Stevens sometimes that Cousin Peter had never had, not even at his most erratic. He’d heard her speak to Mr. Stevens about why he had insisted on taking Alexander in. Sometimes she would even make hysterical accusations about the shame a wife could not be expected to be subjected to, raising her husband’s bastard. Luckily Mr. Stevens treated this as the nonsense it clearly was, and the rest of the time she was as kind to him as she had always been, and as happy about his friendship with Neddy.

 _Rachel never looked at me that way,_ he had said.

 _But you would have been glad if she had_ , replied Mrs. Stevens. Which was ridiculous as Maman had never loved anybody but Dad.

Still. Best not to tempt a storm, especially as neither Neddy nor Mr. Stevens were around to distract her, and the girls didn’t know how to give her peace and quiet even though Alexander had been very clear with them about what she needed. There was nothing formal about their arrangement, not yet, although Mr. Stevens had said that he wished Alexander could stay longer. If he were to make that happen—and it was his best chance, perhaps his only chance, for some peace after the last several months—he would have to be as unobtrusive a presence as possible, and impose as little as he could.

So he took himself down to the bookshop to see if there was anything new he could afford (no), to the market to see if there was anything interesting that had been shipped in (no) and then to the square to see if there was any gossip worth knowing (Mrs. Holm’s baby may have been fathered by one of the slaves, and there was a new vessel coming from the mainland that afternoon.)

So it was that Alexander was at the dock when the stranger’s ship arrived. He made a habit of watching the passengers, making up life stories for them. For fun, yes, as a way to pass the time, but also to see if any of them looked like they might require assistance. Alexander had an income, though a small one, but orphan boys needed to economize and look for what coin they could find, and tourists were a good source of such coin. And more than that, they were interesting. They were proof that Christiansted was a place one could leave, because he saw them coming and going, moving on with their lives, using it as a waypoint. They weren’t trapped, and one day Alexander wouldn’t be either. One day he would get on a ship just like them, and go to a place where he wouldn’t have to be grateful, and never come back.

At first Alexander was disappointed. It was a ship he knew from work, and the captain and crew didn’t take him seriously, but always wanted him to do counting tricks for them like he was some kind of performing bear instead of a businessman with a promising future. He knew all their stories and couldn’t embroider them to suit him—the reasons they went to sea were the same sad reasons any man did: no one wanted them on land; they had no place there and no prospect of fortune; or they had hungers that could not be satisfied among civilized company, for drink or cards or flesh. And worst of all, they were cheap. There was nothing wrong with being frugal, of course; Alexander was frugal and expected to be so his entire life. But there was a difference between being frugal and being cheap, the latter of which was unworthy of a gentleman.

Alexander was just about to give this up for a bad job when the stranger stepped off the ship. He was a giant in stature, wearing some of the finest clothes Alexander had ever seen. A planter, then, from the Carolinas, or Virginia, where the planters were as good as princes. But he didn’t stand like a lordling. He stood like a soldier, ramrod-straight, alert.

Alexander watched him closely, so he didn’t think anyone else noticed, but beneath the man’s heavy brow, his eyes widened, and for an instant he looked utterly terrified. Alexander could relate. Then the gentleman’s mask slipped back over his face, and somehow he managed to stand even straighter. That settled it, then. The man needed help, and moreover would be able to compensate Alexander for providing it.

Alexander made his approach. Cautiously, of course. It wouldn’t do to scare him off by looking desperate: some men, who liked to think of themselves as kind and generous benefactors, liked that approach, but he had the sense this man would prefer plain dealing. “Hello, sir.” he said. “May I be of some assistance?”

The man blinked. Looked down at him. Alexander tried very hard not to feel like an insect about to be squashed under his shoe. “You are very kind to offer, young man,” he said flatly. “But I am here on a personal matter requiring delicacy and discretion.”

The dismissal irked Alexander. “I have lots of discretion, but I notice you don’t have servants. May I carry your luggage to the scene of this fraught personal matter?” Now that Alexander thought about it, the fact that this man had not even brought a valet was strange, and not to be expected for one of his class.

“My trunks are very heavy, young man, I doubt you could manage to walk so far.”

“How far are you going?” he asked, in the most reasonable way he could.

“I…I do not know. As far as I need to, I suppose.”

Well then. This was proving to be more complicated than Alexander had thought. “Well, perhaps I should help you figure that out first, then,” he said.

“You’re a very impertinent boy,” said the man. But he didn’t cuff Alexander, or tell him to go away, and though his expression was dour his eyes were kind.

Alexander thought he could risk taking a chance with this one. “Yes, sir, it’s my biggest vice. And you are not a very forthcoming man.”

“Some would say that is mine.” The man did not quite smile, but Alexander thought his mouth quirked a little bit. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light.

“Well,” said Alexander, “you are going to need a mount if it turns out you have a ways to go. I know someone who wouldn’t dare make a bad deal with you, if he knows you’re a friend of mine. Why don’t I set you up with him, and then while we’re doing that you can figure out how far you need to go?”

“Oh, I’m a friend of yours, now,” said the man.

“Of course!” said Alexander trying on his most winning smile. “I just know we’re going to be great friends. Why else would I offer to help you?”

“And I suppose you expect no compensation for this favor you are doing out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Anything for a friend,” said Alexander, taking care not to let the smile falter. “However, if said friend were to be so kind and generous as to offer a small token of his esteem…”

“There it is. I suppose I have made worse investments.”

Alexander supposed he had done so as well. “May I at least take some of your luggage, sir?”

The man apparently recognized Alexander was not going to give up the point. He passed over the smallest of the trunks. To Alexander’s chagrin, it was empty. When Alexander brought the man’s attention to this fact, he was given another empty trunk as well. This was starting to make a bit more sense.

“So,” he asked as they walked away from the docks, “bastard or mistress?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the man in a tone of voice so cold it seemed to make even the sun’s rays feel freezing.

Alexander wanted to shrink down in his boots. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it, sir, that you wish to bring someone back with you? If it were a savory connection you’d have just told me who you were looking for right away, which suggests you wish to cause no embarrassment. This is the sort of place gentlemen like you tend to forget things. Maybe these things grow up a bit later. Maybe you decide you miss them after a time. So, is it a bastard or a mistress, sir? Or both at once, I suppose, though I’ve not seen that before.”

The gentleman’s face flushed. “Not that it is any of your concern, but I am happily married.”

Not for long, it sounded like. “So a bastard then. If you wish my advice, sir…”

“I do not.”

“But I was just going to say…”

“This subject is closed.”

As Alexander had predicted, his friend Jacques knew just what sort of horse the gentleman would like, and as he’d predicted, Jacques and the gentleman formed an immediate rapport, since both rhapsodized about the other’s good taste in horseflesh for several minutes, which was how Alexander found out that the gentleman was not just a Virginia planter, but Colonel George Washington, commander of the Virginia Regiment.

“Sir,” said Alexander, forgetting all propriety, “You have to tell me all about the war, you have to!”

Colonel Washington did not seem to find that a persuasive line of argument. “I’m afraid there is not much to tell.”

“You’ve done it now, Colonel,” said Jacques. “Our Alexander is glory-mad, much as I am sure you were at his age.”

“Luckily, I know better now,” said the colonel. “As will you, young Alexander.”

“I’m going to be an officer too someday,” said Alexander. “It’s how I’m going to make my mark. Oh, please, tell me all about it, I’d rather that than coin if we talk tokens, please.”

“This is not a negotiation, young man,” said Colonel Washington, already beginning to load his luggage onto the horse. The greater part of it would be secured to another mount and sent after him when he found somewhere to stay…Alexander had agreed to send word, which meant he might get a bit of money from both of them.

“Think of it as practice for when you meet your son,” Alexander suggested. It was possible that the colonel’s natural child was a girl, he supposed, but gentleman of that sort didn’t tend to bring bastard daughters back with them. He could just send money for a dowry if he wanted to provide for a girl. “He will surely wish to know as much about it as I do, if not more. You can practice your stories on me and I’ll tell you how to make them sound more impressive. How old is the boy, anyway? One must tailor one’s stories to one’s audience. It would not do to frighten a little boy with tales better fit for the ears of men.”

“Alexander,” said Colonel Washington, quite as stern as any parent. It struck him that he almost missed being scolded in this way. It had been so long since anyone had cared enough about what he had to say to correct it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say anything! But truly, Colonel, sir, I do not think you have anything about which to be ashamed. It’s a truly noble and honorable thing you’re doing.” But his heart sank, Jacques was a notorious gossip, and there was no doubt that Colonel Washington’s sensitive errand would be all over town in a matter of hours. Unless perhaps Alexander could find a bribe with which to keep him quiet….

Jacques, for perhaps the first time since Alexander had known him, asked no questions. “I wish you all the luck in the world with your endeavor, Colonel,” he said.

“It appears I shall need it,” said the colonel dryly. He took the two empty trunks from Alexander, and all of a sudden, without quite knowing what had happened, Alexander was being placed on a horse, the colonel swinging into the saddle behind him and putting an arm around his waist, taking the reins with the other.

“What are you doing?” Alexander asked, calmly and not at all with a shriek of horror at being so high off the ground.

“Well, you can hardly follow on foot, can you,” said the colonel. “Unless you would like your own mount. Can you ride, young man?”

“Sure,” said Alexander.

“Can he ride?” the colonel asked Jacques. Jacques laughed.

“Hey!”

“That’s what I thought. You will have to be taught, I suppose, but for now I’ve got you.” Washington did something to the reins and the horse was moving. Alexander was too preoccupied by trying to stay on the horse to be too confused as to why the colonel was all of a sudden offering to teach him to ride.

“Where to now?” asked Alexander. “We must find you lodgings, I suppose. I don’t recommend most of the inns near here, sir, they tend to cater to a rough crowd. We’ll need a base a bit more out of the way, from which we can take the time to conduct our investigation properly.”

“Our investigation?”

“Mmm-hmm. I assume you don’t know exactly where your son is or with whom he has been placed, but if you give me the information you have to go on, I can make inquiries. Then when we’ve narrowed down the field of likely candidates, I’ll think up a strategy for how you can make the best approach.”

“Why is it,” said the colonel, “that you want to help me?”

 _Hope of reward,_ he tried to say, but something about the man’s demeanor compelled honesty. “Because…well, it’s a happy ending, isn’t it. For you and your son. Nobody…nobody gets long-lost relatives saying they wanted them all along. Maybe I want to see it happen for once.” He no longer held out hope of such things ever happening for him, but if he could somehow be a part of the story, that could be consolation. Hope through the lonely years that stretched ahead.

“If he wants to come with me,” said the colonel. “If his mother will let him.”

“He will,” said Alexander. “My dad left for a while but I’d go anywhere with him if he wanted me to. I really hope he wouldn’t stay away because he thought I’d be angry, sir.”

“I do not mean to pry, but…your father, did he come back?”

“Not yet,” said Alexander. “But he will, I know he will.” Though really, Alexander would have thought he’d come sooner, what with the news of his mother’s death, or if not hers, Cousin Peter’s and Uncle James’s.

Colonel Washington did not offer him any pitying platitudes, or ask him how he was so sure, or even why his father had left. It made Alexander like him better.

“Hamilton!”

Colonel Washington’s grip inexplicably tightened around Alexander’s waist. Alexander stiffened in the saddle, and he sighed as he realized who was hailing him. It was John Beekman, one of Mr. Beekman’s younger cousins, who thought he knew everything about the business on account of sharing a surname with the owner.

“Hamilton, what on earth are you doing? We need you to help with the inventory.”

“It’s my free day,” Alexander called back. “I’ll come in again on my free day when I see the wages you owe me from last time, plus an advance on the next.”

“Oh, what nonsense, get off that horse and stop accosting strangers.”

“Is there a problem, sir?” Colonel Washington said in a tone of voice that made his earlier scolding of Alexander sound downright warm and cheery.

“This rude little urchin must have charmed you, but I assure you you don’t need to listen to anything he says. My family employs him because we feel sorry for the lad, but there’s only so far good Christian charity goes, alas.”

“Actually, young Master Hamilton is an old family friend,” said the colonel smoothly. “He heard I was coming and kindly offered to use his free day to show me around. I’m just about to give him the riding lesson he begged for, then we’ll go and visit his mother, right, Alexander?”

Oh. Oh, no. “I—“

Beekman scoffed. “A bit late, aren’t you, sir. Hamilton, get down from there, you can make up stories later.”

“I would suggest,” Colonel Washington murmured into Alexander’s ear, “you hang on tight.”

“Huh?” But it was too late, the colonel kicked the horse and they were sprinting away, heedless of passersby, who quickly scurried out of their way.

“What are you doing!” shrieked Alexander, desperately trying to cling to the horse as it jostled him.

“It’s good to be able to adapt your strategy, but sometimes you need to know when to retreat!” the colonel called back, smiling for the first time. “Besides, he bored me.”

“Are you insane? That was my boss.” He wasn’t really, but Alexander doubted Washington would be interested in a detailed explanation of Beekman and Cruger’s hierarchy.

“Then he ought to be more mindful of your schedule,” said Colonel Washington.

“I have to go to work tomorrow!” wailed Alexander, and then Colonel Washington jumped a fence and he became too preoccupied with staying upright to argue.

“There,” said the colonel, slowing the horse to a more sedate pace. “That should lose him. Why don’t you dismount and stretch your legs for a moment? Is he always so…much?”

“He’s just angry because I know how to do his job better than he does,” Alexander admitted, following the colonel’s suggestion. He was going to be sore tomorrow, he could tell.

“Ah. Incompetent superiors are a curse. Do you…do you work there often? What sort of work do you do for the gentleman? It seems as though you are quite indispensable.”

Colonel Washington had all of a sudden lapsed into that tone of voice grownups used when they wanted to pretend they were making idle chit-chat but really didn’t want a child to guess how important their question was, and Alexander disliked it exceedingly. “I’m very good at my job, sir.”

“Of that I have no doubt. But is it…necessary, for you?”

Why was the man asking him about all this? They had only just met. “No, I clerk for fun because I would rather do that than go to school or socialize.”

That was uncalled for, and Alexander knew it the moment the words left his mouth. But the colonel only said, “I see.”

“Where did you even go, anyway, I don’t know whose land this is or how to get back.”

“Not to worry, I’ll just get out my compass and we can navigate back toward the harbor. It’s important that you carry a compass with you at all times, you know, and learn the landscape. That way, you’ll never be lost.”

Oh, merciful God in heaven, the colonel was one of those. This was going to take all day if Alexander didn’t figure out an alternative, and quickly. “We should find people and tell them we’re lost,” he said.

“Nonsense, this will take but a moment.”

It did not take but a moment, and Alexander luckily found a shepherd while Colonel Washington was examining trees to figure out which side the moss grew on. He got a small taste of revenge for the comment about visiting his mother, as he said with his most winning smile that his dad had gotten lost during their riding lesson because of a stubborn refusal to ask for directions, which was just typical. For some reason this completely failed to rile the colonel, which was disappointing.

Eventually they got it straightened out, and Alexander regretted that he could not act on his impulse, which was to invite the colonel to stay with them at the Stevenses’. It would be perfect since Mr. Stevens knew everybody and enjoyed having company, and the colonel seemed the sort who would be more comfortable among friends, even new ones, than he would be at an inn. But Mr. Stevens was away and their home was not Alexander’s to offer. Colonel Washington, no matter his fine qualities, would not aid Alexander in his goal of staying unobtrusive and out of the way. There was a boarding house near Beekman and Cruger that would let rooms cheaply enough, though, and since the proprietresses were spinsters they did not take on men of bad character. It would have to do for now.

“I…I really did know your mother,” Colonel Washington explained once they had gotten him settled in. “At least I think I did, if you are the Alexander Hamilton she mentioned. Rachel Hamilton’s son. I would like very much…to see her again, if she will receive me. Will you ask her?”

Oh. Alexander swallowed the lump in his throat. “Odd that she never mentioned you to me.”

“We were infrequent correspondents,” said the colonel, and looked away as though ashamed. “Tell her she need not feel obligated…I mean…it is only that I really need to talk to her.”

Alexander really needed to talk to her too, but life didn’t give him what he needed. “Well, it’s like Mr. Beekman said,” he explained, trying to make his voice sound light and castoff, like he didn’t care at all. “You’re late.”

“I am well aware…oh.”

“Yeah,” said Alexander. There was nothing else to say. He couldn’t look at Washington. If he looked at Washington he might start to cry, and he could not cry in front of this gentleman, this soldier, who was everything Alexander had ever wanted to be and who had a family somewhere that he wanted, who would have his fairy story while Alexander had no one.

“I’m so very sorry,” said Washington. “Rachel…I should say Mrs. Hamilton…was like no one I have ever met.”

It was the first time in the months since his mother had died that anyone had given condolences that were actually about her, rather than about how awful it must be to be a poor orphan boy all alone in the world without her.

“You are the image of her, you know.”

Alexander blinked. “Do you think so?”

“Oh, yes. Same face, same build, same tendency to ask impertinent questions.”

He could not cry, so he laughed. “Did you kidnap her, too?”

“As I recall, young man, you insisted on accompanying me. That’s hardly kidnapping.”

“I didn’t get up on that horse by myself.”

“So I rendered you some assistance. As you yourself pointed out, there is nothing wrong with helping a friend.” The colonel’s smile, shy and tentative, reminded him of nothing so much as Jamie, who used to bring their mother flowers from the field and was unsure if she’d like them. Which was silly, as she always did.

He had to get out of here. “I should…check on things at work,” he said, because there was nowhere else he could plausibly go. “It was a pleasure to meet you, sir. I'll make certain your things get to you.”

Washington mercifully let the transparent lie pass without comment. He held out his hand for Alexander to shake, like a man, like an equal, and he did. “It was a pleasure to meet you too, Alexander. I look forward to continuing our acquaintance.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“As you assist me with our investigation, of course. How am I to find my son if I do not cultivate informants among the locals? Which reminds me…” He took his purse from his belt.

Alexander shook his head. “No, sir, I can’t take money from my mother’s friend.”

“What do you think she would say about that, young man?”

Huh. He really had known Maman. “She would say it was ridiculous, sir, but there are things ladies do not understand about the honor of gentlemen.”

“That’s true. Tomorrow, then.”

Alexander smiled. “Tomorrow, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [herowndeliverance](herowndeliverance.tumblr.com)


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